10 Year Plan Update: Triathlon

I honestly hoped to have accomplished more here, but I have started running.

Please do not be impressed at all by this. What this means is that in the course of about every other walk, starting recently, I will pick a spot, and run till I get there. I haven’t done it very often. I am not great at estimating distances, but I doubt it is generally much more than fifty yards, and I am not doing it as a dash. I huff and I puff by the end. I don’t know that I even go much faster than I would walking, though a lot of the runners that I see are not going much faster than walking speed, so that may be okay.

Of course, my original plan when I set out was always for a slow buildup, so that is okay. I am exercising pretty regularly, my weight has gone down some and my blood sugar is improving, while the rest of my health is overall good. While I am not doing anything really hardcore, which I still think is possible, at least I feel like I can maintain momentum on this, which might not be true of more ambitious action.

I was thinking about whether I was looking at things wrong, based on something Michael Moore said. He gave up diet and exercise, because they weren’t working for him. Once he did that, he lost 60 pounds. What he does do is walk for thirty minutes a day, even if it means walking at midnight because he did not get to it earlier. But it is not exercise, it is a walk.

I think there is something valuable in there, but ultimately I decided that “exercise” is reasonable for me. I don’t seem to have much stigma for the word, perhaps because what I do does tend to be something that I enjoy. I like aerobics for the most part, and while there may be suffering involved during, I still feel energized by the end, or I probably won’t go back to that routine. I don’t love the running, but it feels better than when it was something we had to do in school.

The thing is, I really want to run. Obviously, it was a result of reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, and that’s where I started wanting to do the triathlon. Previously, I always thought the biking and the swimming sounded good, but it was a pity they needed to ruin it with the running. Then I started to wonder about it, I guess, which is why I read the book, and then I couldn’t lose the desire to run.

Now there is something interesting between Moore and McDougall. When McDougall was consulting with a doctor about running he asked about doing things differently, like whether he should lose weight first or make dietary changes, and the doctor told him those things would follow. We are systems with complex relationships between the parts. So perhaps Michael Moore is only committed to walking thirty minutes a day, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t eat differently now, regardless of how conscious it is.

I have noticed that I seem to be noticing that I am full, and not continuing to eat. That may be more of a physical thing, but it could come from being better off mentally and emotionally. A lot of different things have gone into that, but the exercise probably didn’t hurt, even though I don’t think of it as exercise. The fresh air component is certainly helpful to me, though I am not always outside. I don’t know where it all comes from, or where it all will go, but it is generally positive, so I may just go with that and not worry about the details too much.

So right now, the plan is to just keep throwing in these running bursts, and to have them get more frequent and longer. I am going pretty easy right now, not just because I am a wimp, but also because it has been so cold lately, and that affects the muscles and the lungs. I should be able to do more as it gets warmer.

My shorter term goal was to run a 5K in August, which seemed doable. I have already walked a 5K, and there was a reasonable amount of time in between. That specific goal came from seeing something about the Electric Run coming to Portland, and it looked like it would be an August date.

http://electricrun.com/portland-or/

It turns out that it will be July 13^th, and it will not be through downtown, but around Portland International Raceway. This is a little less intriguing. I am not ruling it out, but I am still deciding. The overall goal is still the triathlon in 2022, and specifically an Ultra Distance triathlon (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile ride, and 26.2 mile run), though not specifically the Ironman, which is the most recognized branded Ultra Distance triathlon. (Yes, I looked it up.)

The individual steps to that ultimate goal may change a lot, as long as I still feel like I am moving forward.